I don't really mind microtransactions as a way of getting cool stuff faster, like paying for req packs or something. But I think they make games incredibly less fun when they allow a paying player to gain a one-sided, otherwise unobtainable advantage over a free player. Imagine playing chess with someone who got an extra queen because they paid $20. That's not a very interesting game imo I also might be a lone wolf in that I feel that when a game has any sort of microtransaction at all, it seems to indicate to me that the product is more interested in making money, than delivering quality, which kind of inherently lowers my appreciation for the game. I looooove that Halo keeps adding free stuff. How many games go the extra mile like that for me? I pretty much never buy microtransaction stuff in games anyway, so Halo gets more money out of me by incentivizing me to buy the next game. Is this actually the most profitable approach for them? I dunno.
it took me aback when I first heard Halo commentators saying "whooa that sniper shot was absolutely disgusting!"... then I realized the kids these days use weird slang
I don't consider them a crucifiable offense unless they effect the gameplay. If they do so in any way, that's where it becomes a deterrent and makes the game actively worse. Noone gave a **** when people bought a weapon skin in h4 or got the preorder bonus with Reach, because it barely effected the main experience of the game. Warzone turned into a garbage fire distorted aborted child of fiesta btb because of the microtransactions affecting gameplay. Then Battlefront 2 literally did the exact same thing and now people finally give a ****.
I hate how in Miniclip 8 ball pool rich people have a huge advantage over people like me who will never spend money on extra coins or cues. That’s disgusting to me.
People don't want to pay for music or movies but they'll settle for a $8,50 caramel foam hipster coffee.
they mean pure fat THAT SAID I have been watching as video game companies slowly but surely enact Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work to further the organization itself. Spoiler: a rant - you DON'T have to click this When those that further the organization become so repulsive to those that contributed to the rise of the organization to begin with - think Halo fans and Bungie, post-Destiny debacle - it is no surprise that interest wanes, and profitability goes down. But with the data, the microtransactions, the ubiquitous nature of videogames with the 10-35 demographic, it behooves the companies to continue milking the goat dry. But what happens when the goat knows that it is being milked dry, and continues to provide milk to the milking machine? That's where we are now, with games, popular franchises of all kinds. This type of game is a safe bet for the companies. Stepping outside these bounds is scary for them, and as the Law of Bureaucracy suggests (its corollary, rather), as organizations become more 'administrated' they become more risk-averse - even with the more capital they accumulate, these orgs are not likely to take large risks, even small ones. Halo's trajectory under the stewardship of Microsoft and 343 is a very good example. It went from a bit of a trailblazer (though with obvious 'safety nets' - each of the first 3/4 games did something very innovative and risky in grand scheme, but there was enough familiarity there that it was attractive to a wide audience) to a follower - loadouts, mobility modifiers, sprint, microtransaction-driven gameplay... you get the picture. Where is the risky adoption of 'classic'-style gameplay, using the built-up knowledge of gaming and interactions that exists 20 years into the franchise's life? We'll see if they go for it in Halo 6 - they very well may, if the rumblings of 'boots on the ground', 'back on their heels' hype is to be believed - but I doubt it very much. And even if they do, the cynics out there will likely write it off as a negative form of 'fanservice' - oh, you want to make people a good game they will actually enjoy for its own merits and on its own terms, rather than the marketing, 'look', and how simple it is to handle for the uninitiated masses? How bourgeois. Obviously I am biased, but Forge is, to my knowledge, the only enclave for such risky business in Halo, or any console game for that matter. Perhaps Forge will be a separate game, come Halo 6 - who knows. It seems like Halo 5:Forge PC was a step in this direction, in a way. Maybe the level editor with have a basic console wersion and a super-in-depth PC version. I don't know. I kinda don't want to know until 2020, when it's been out for a few months. But - would anyone have said anything if these games weren't also being injected with unnatural and odd character, story, and setting decisions? Spoiler: politics - optional side-quest More clearly, where would we be right now if it weren't for the drift leftward in 'mainstream' gaming - when a classic franchise about killing Nazis (german soldiers, not members of the National Socialist Workers' Party), robo-Hitler, and shooting big fat guns can be turned into a not-so veiled 'anti-WASP' (what is a Spoiler: a rant - you DON'T have to click this Spoiler: politics - optional side-quest WASP anyway, these days?) manifesto - when a former graphics demo-turned multi-million dollar powerhouse franchise can do the same with flyover country and Christian conservative fanaticism - and when even Call of Duty's most 'realistic' outing to date inserts, probably not for blatantly 'liberal' or 'leftist' reasons, really, visible minorities into roles that they were so statistically insignificant both in reality and narratively speaking for the setting (and quite frankly, the idea of black women LARPing as the Wermacht in a war-reenactment is quite amusing to me - where are the Asians, the Native Americans, etc. though? where are the jewish SS officers? not even in DLC??? - however, unlike with Halo 5, there is no 'canonical' explanation for this LARPing; no Warzone or 'Infinity Wargames' mode. If there were some setting and context for it, I'm sure it would have been a little bit easier for people to accept and laugh about) - where would we be if Western games were still being made the way that they were in 1995 - 2010? If Japanese games were not the zombified Gamecube spinoffs and party favors they largely are today - if the depth and artistry of the text/dialogue-based RPG were still valued in more than just the niche japa-neet/weeb markets? Spoiler: a rant - you DON'T have to click this I'm not so certain - the gaming market is saturated not by those who live and breathe the depth of a given franchise, but those who consume for the sake of consuming, and has been for much of the last 10 years. In such a market - where microtransactions and the engineered retarding of gameplay go hand-in-hand when the main selling point of video games is not the difficulty of the game itself and the drive to actually win, but the difficulty of the system of the game that can be easily skipped with just a couple bucks - people are so easily primed to consume the newest thing that it may be a fait accompli that the newest game is bought, regardless. Think of Battlefront II (2017) - this is the worst offender when it comes to microtransactions, so far. If the leaks I've seen elsewhere about smart 'real-time' micro-marketing in future EA games are true (which I think they very much are, given the direction of the industry currently), then it will get much, much worse, and much more integral to the experience. What drives gameplay in this game? Fun - but mostly Aesthetics. There is no substance to the gameplay. The 'ease of victory' as well - those with access to mom's wallet, or no girlfriend (statistical anomalies excepted, this is a given) will have tons of money to drop on this - which ties neatly into the aesthetics, because it is all about the appearance of skill in an environment of nearly complete chance. But in that 'chance', you can win just by dropping a couple dollars here and there. The appearance of virtue. It is Warzone writ large. Now think of Halo 2 or Halo 3- arguably the cleanest console multiplayer experience of all time. No microtransactions, integrated multiplayer with nothing locked away (yes unlockables in Halo 3 - prestige and challenge-based, rather than randomized, so there are the beginnings of gameplay incentivisation. Boosting in this, MW1, WaW, and MW2 were prevalent, and arguably the precursors to the pay-to-win aesthetic prestige mentality we see now, but I digress). These games were respected for their difficulty, depth, and detail, and still are. What drove gameplay in these games? Fun, as well - any good game must be fun to draw any audience, obviously. But more than that - actual skill and depth, and community engagement drove these games to success. Halos CE and 2 in particular benefitted from LAN parties, tournaments, etc. Halo 3, from the fileshare and Bungie.net, with all the stats and facts about your playing, and care involved in making it accessible and useful - to anyone, but particularly those who cared enough to engage with the game for what it was. For free! But would these games actually be successful in today's market? In today's industry setting? Now think of an arcade claw game. This is pure chance, but for a fixed price per attempt. Everyone pays the same, for roughly the same chance of winning, even though with the illusion of a hand in your winning, the illusion of skill. Arguably, this is a more honest enterprise than the current state of video games. Why? Because it is like a casino - the house wins if you don't. Other people are not winning against you for the price they pay - in fact, everyone has to pay the same price for the same chance of 'winning'. It is a lottery. With microtransactions, more money doesn't translate into a better accumulated chance of winning - it translates to a guaranteed win, in nearly all cases; you can pay to win the lottery with microtransactions. And that sucks when the entire game, or any part of it (including aesthetic elements) are built around it. Combine the profit motive, the mostly unwitting but still very willing market, the engineering of gameplay experience (xbox = skinner's box) and the profitability of the data and analytics derived from monitoring the players and their financial / behavioral habits in and out of games, we are all living in the world of Portal whether we like it or not. You consent to and further this by virtue of purchasing and using the games - just as you consent to your own surveillance and self-marketing with Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Gmail, whatever 'free' service you're using. You are helping that 'free' service make money by just selling your information to companies that want to target customers better, by using it to sell you things - more free services - in exactly the same way you are helping game companies sell you more and more of the same crap by buying it in the vain hope that they didn't make another 'alcoholic simulator' of a game. What does that mean? It means they are selling you booze, with some nice little sides. Oh, $3 fried pickles? Sure! *downs first beer* Oh, $4 fries? I'm there! *downs second beer* Oh, a $12 burrito? I need to soak up my next drink anyway! *downs another beer, or shot(s) - designed to get you drunker, quicker* Oh, [insert small, but ever growing number of inoffensively-priced item that is blatantly overpriced when sober but a good deal now that you're under the haze of a $35 bar tab]? Why not, I'm here anyway! And so on and so on. At some point you realize you're in this cycle, that you are an alcoholic - when you explain this to your fellow alcoholics, they're just as drunk as you, but likely don't notice it, or don't think it's that bad. At this point, how can you separate yourself from this cycle? Cynicism? Everyone's a cynic at the bar. In the outside world, though, that can't make you any friends - you merely become more isolated in the face of such a daunting scenario. Using this system to your advantage? That means infiltrating the system, exposing yourself to deeper and deeper levels of this process, maybe even becoming the bartender. Irony, or ironic detachment? What does another person make of this? If you are detached from the process, people will find it difficult to 'relate' to your position. Are you serious, or are you just being a memekid? If you're serious, then people get spooked. If you're just a memekid, they can't take you seriously. Do you express love of something? Excitement? Interest? In what, exactly.. and how to tell if it is worth loving under the influence of the cheaper and cheaper liquor? To connect this back to games, do you love the gameplay? The franchise? The community? The aesthetics? The depth (is there any?)? Love of what? How are you expressing that love? And what does loving that mean to those who you are expressing that love to - whether they disagree or not? I suppose this is what Forge is - something through which we can express the love of making great things. But at this point, it's a little bit like asking the bartender to lend us the tumbler and the muddler, and the rawest ingredients, and going home to drink alone, with other drinkers who don't just want the Tiki slop that passes for mixed drinks. We love our booze - and we love making great things, great simple things that work, that provide joy. But we are still using the stuff we got from the bartender. [/spoiler]
Yeah permanent unlocks is one thing. Items that may very well last a literal second if you get spawn killed or something is insane
I think @LargerFiend is the most promising individual making maps in the community right now. You'll be a force in Halo 6 my dude.